He blinked, as if clearing his vision. "Oh, it worked. He's headed to the mansion, to pick up Dahlia. And to move back in."

"Wait… I thought the mansion belonged to… " I rose and wandered to the living room. Cyrus was in the kitchen still, reading through Dahlia's notes. I took the chair across from him.

"Cyrus, who owns your mansion?" I watched his face for any flicker of emotion, but none showed.

"My mansion? If I had a mansion, would I be staying here?" He turned a page casually.

I rolled my eyes. "You know what I'm talking about. The house on

Plymouth Street

. Who owns it?"

"My father." He touched his tongue to his forefinger and turned another page. "Why do you ask?"

"So Clarence, then, he works for your father?"

Cyrus nodded. "He comes with the house."

"How long has your father owned that house, Cyrus?" I had the strangest feeling I'd overlooked something important, "Twenty years? Thirty?"

"One hundred and fifty." He stretched his arms over his head and yawned. "He liked Michigan because it had a lot in common with England , climatewise."

I leaned on the table and scanned the page in front of me. "Is there some connection, then, between this area and the Oracle?"

Cyrus shook his head. "No. He wasn't interest in her then. I don't know why he's interested in her now. He just liked the weather."

I glanced behind me to where Nathan stood in the doorway, his face grim. I turned back to Cyrus. "So, how can Clarence come with the house, then? He's old, but not a hundred and fifty years old."

Cyrus looked at me as if I'd gone out of my mind. "You don't think he's alive, do you?" He started to laugh a chuckle that grew to full-out laughter such as I'd never seen from him, until he pounded his knee with his fist and wiped tears of mirth from his eyes. "Oh, that's priceless."

"So, he's a vampire then?" I snapped, not nearly as amused as Cyrus. "He's working for your father?"

"He's a ghost, Carrie." Cyrus gave one last, soundless hitch of laughter. "I can't believe you didn't know that."

"That's not possible," I scoffed. "There are no such things as ghosts."

"You said the same thing about vampires," Nathan reminded me. "And werewolves."

"Yeah, but—"

"I watched one of my father's minions do it," Cyrus interrupted calmly. "Do you remember when I cut your heart out?"

I glared at him. "That's a stupid question. Of course I do."

"Do you remember what it was like to die?" He paused, waiting so I could think it over.

Not that I needed to search my memory. Dying, and what happened after, was never far from my mind. It wasn't that I was a morbid person, but the memory of leaving my body and floating among a bunch of faceless, vaguely similar ghost people was all the motivation I needed to keep myself from danger.